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greeksorceress · 2 years

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cregan stark actually manages to make a good first impression in aemond’s demanding eyes.

the northern youth is as tall and as broad as his father and the rest of their kin, not older than aemond for more than a couple of years but already a man in the court’s account. the stark heir is also polite and honourable, just as they had expected, and he treats royalty and service with humility and grace.

on top of all of that, cregan is a prodigy when it comes to swordsmanship, knocking on their backs three knights in a row the first time he’s invited to the training yard.

so, it’s safe to assume that aemond would take a liking to him, finally meeting someone who he can consider an almost equal in skills and hard-work.

it doesn’t take long for aemond to notice that he’s not the only one impressed by the stark.

lucerys, who used to pester aemond for his attention and time, now spends his mornings and afternoons trailing after the older male like a little duck, utterly and childishly enamoured with the stark’s abilities and stories.

aemond’s liking towards cregan considerably dampens after this realisation. he makes himself busy by his own and counts down the days for the northmen’s departure.

he doesn’t understand lucerys’ eagerness, to be honest. yes, cregan might be worth of being called a decent man, good-natured and skilled, but he wasn’t that impressive. after all, he was just a common man from the north, he didn’t have the old valyria blood of the targaryens, nor had the dragons or the power.

what was a wolf to a dragon, anyways? aemond bitterly questions lucerys’ poor choices, purposely ignoring the voice that tells hims that he doesn’t have a dragon either.

much to aemond’s dismay, lucerys does seem very interested in the wolves. he asks about the lands and about the ice, about the castle and about the wall, but his questions always circle back to the damned animals.

is it true your woods are ten thousand years old? are wolves as loyal as dogs? can you trust them just as much? has it ever been so cold in winterfell that even you couldn’t stand it? what do wolves usually eat? do you feed them yourself? have you ever mounted one? do you rely on them when you go hunting or fighting?

it’s disgusting how lucerys wastes his time in such insignificant matters.

and then, on the third day of the northmen’s visit, aemond finds himself reading by the window in the third floor of maegor’s holdfast, hidden behind rows and shelves full of books in the most secluded part of the library. he likes coming here, because nobody seems to recall this little spot exists, a nd he likes to be left alone.

happy screech coming from the training yard makes him look away from the lines he was trying to memorise and he peers over the window.

there, lucerys and cregan stark seem to be sparring, but they’re not. they’re circling each other, using the wooden swords to jokingly poke more than to hit, and lucerys is laughing his little heart out as cregan lightly smacks his thigh with a smile.

aemond closes his book with a loud smack and runs down to the yard, nor bothering to contain his fuming.

as soon as he’s in the same space as them, he marches towards lucerys and grunts at him “weren’t you sick?”

it’s what he has said when aemond asked him to come to te library. that his tummy hurt and that he wanted to take a nap.

lucerys has the decency to look ashamed. it does nothing to quell the unexplainable ire bubbling in his blood. “i felt better after my sleep! i was looking for you, but i couldn’t find you!”

aemond looks at lucerys’ flushed cheeks, unrelenting, “hm.”

of course, cregan stark, the noble northern that seems to have taken with grace and mirth the position of lucerys’ guardian and protector, steps in.

“it’s true, my prince. he was looking for you in the training yard and i happened to come across him, so i invited him to a friendly spar. prince lucerys is nothing short of talented, so we got a bit caught”

lucerys looks up at the northern heir, doe eyes glassy and wide as if he was contemplating salvation itself, and it makes aemond’s lips curl in a snarl.

“lucerys doesn’t like training, he always throws a fit when he’s asked to”

lucerys glares at him and aemond glares right back, daring the youngest boy to refute his words.

cregan beats him to it.

“well, why don’t we train together then, my prince? let’s work hard so we can make prince lucerys feel fonder towards sparring after seeing us!”

everything seems to get back to normal after that. cregan and him spare together and lucerys cheers for him more than he does for cregan. the resentment slowly dissipates as cregan and him clash their wooden swords against each other’s, and aemond decides he had just been in a weird mood before.

jacaerys and aegon join them at some point, and cregan and aegon team against him and jacaerys. it’s fun, much more fun than their regular training.

lucerys claps loudly for him when aemond and jacaerys win over the older boys —their loss was completely on aegon, but it matters little to aemond if he won because of his own abilities or the lack of such from his opponent when lucerys looks at him with the stars in his eyes that the northern lord was taking for himself a while ago.

they return back to the castle, their walk animated by the nonsensical talk of aegon and ajacerys over the stories of the tapestries hanging by the walls of the corridors.

“this one is about maelor I, when he lost his right shoe and sent a party to look for it to the forest!”

“and this one if about visenya, she’s about to dress her dragon in a gown and take it to a ball!”

cregan merely snorts, amused at their antics. lucerys, however, the innocent fool he is, looks at aegon and jacaerys in awe, nodding along their ‘lessons’. aemond chuckles at this, for he knows the maesters are going to have a rough time taking these thoughts out of lucerys’ head.

then, lucerys turns to look at him, as if to corroborate their words, and aemond’s chest tightens with pride. he relishes in the trust, and drinks from that unsullied admiration whenever lucerys checks on him after aegon and jacaerys spit yet another insane conjeture.

when they reach a tapestry that represents the crypt that was built three hundreds of years ago in hopes of imitating the one in winterfell, aegon grins like a madman.

“and this is the best one yet to come! behold their sex fest in the dungeons!”

aemond grimaces. no matter what it is, aegon must always ruin it with his disrespect and blatant lack of manners.

“It’s a crypt,” aemond corrects, “they wanted to built one as the one in winterfell, but decided against it in the last moment”

“really?” lucerys asks, awed at the explanation.

“yes,” confirms the stark, “we’re very proud of it. i like to think of it as the heart of our home”

“i guess it’s similar to the dragon pit for the targaryens,” offers aemond, “it’s the heart of our own home.” then, he turns to look at lucerys. “their crypt was built little after the castle of winterfell. all the starks who have perished rest within its tunnels”

cregan intervenes at this with a smile, trying to soften the commentary. “actually, my prince, the crypt was built much before the castle, after the long night, which is accounted to have happened around eight thousands of years ago. and technically, it’s not the burial place of all starks. burial sites extend beyond the walls into unprotected land, where many of my ancestors perished while fighting against the white walkers. their tombs do not hold names, but we know they’re in there”

aemond tries no to make much of it. he bites his tongue and waits for the vitriol to slow down his throat before humming. his annoyance flares higher when lucerys mouth turns into a perfect O, wonderment and affection evident in his demeanour.

aemond hated it. he hated hated hated hated it.

later, when dinner time comes, lucerys begs cregan to sit by his left side, jutting his lips out and everything. aemond looks at lucerys’ pout from the other side of the table and feels his teeth clank in irritation.

he forces himself to eat, trying to diminish his discomfort and willing himself to stay put with the promise of flying to his rooms as soon as dinner is over.

he’s doing a pretty decent job at it when lucerys’ excited voice resonates over the clinking of the glasses and cutlery and the uninteresting conversation of adults.

“cregan explained a lot of things about the north today!” lucerys chirps animatedly at Rhaneyra, who sits by the boy’s other side cooing at him. “he is so smart, mother! he’s even smarter than aemond!”

aemond cannot stomach any more bite, nor he can stomach the words.

cregan grins at lucerys and ruffles his curls with affection, and that’s all he needed.

he excuses himself under the pretence of being sick and slams the doors to his chambers after him.

#another window to my fic #ughughugh this took me so much time to write #like my skills are nonexistent right now #but this scene wasn't letting me sleep #aemond bby you're just jealous but don't worry lucerys is yours #writing aemond's perspective is so difficult and i'm terrible at it <3 #aemond targaryen #lucerys velaryon #lucemond #lucerys x aemond #ship: lucemond #ship: fated feud #cregan stark #my writing: lucemond #hotd

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